#Bookstgramers – “Readers of Instagram”
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Being a newbie to this rapidly growing bookstagram community, discovering these diverse range of book accounts and getting to interact with them was inspiring and an experience in itself.
Instagram has become a large platform for book lovers to showcase their creativity and reach out to a larger audience of readers. Be it taking photographs of the books; posting visually aesthetic photos or reviews and starting discussions. It is also a way to keep up with your favorite authors and publishers. A look at these profiles immensely reflects the passion and love they have for what they do.
I reached out to several accounts and got back such warm responses about their own bookstagram journeys. I would like to thank them for kindly agreeing to take out time to do this. All you bookworms out there go check out these beautiful insta-accounts, blogs, and sites!
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Something Unique: “I edit all of my pictures the same to give my whole feed a pink hue. I try to keep it real and post books that I’m actually reading at the time. I’m starting my career in publishing, so giving an insider look into the industry is a unique aspect that I bring to my instagram and blog!”
Capturing Interest: “I love my followers and engage with them as often as possible! I also keep them engaged via my coordinating reviews on my website and by asking a question for them to respond to in every post.”
Going forward: “The Spines is very new, it’s been up since the end of August, but the coordinating website has been around since 2015. There you can find years worth of reads and many countries worth of travel stories. I hope to continue finding fellow book lovers and enjoying reading suggestions from my peers, who sometimes know my reading tastes even before I do! Someday I hope to a book club that encourages young people to continue reading through school, the time when most people drop off."
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Something Unique: “I try to make my photos bright and colorful to make it stand out but I also mix in photos of the books I have written reviews for. I want my account to have a balance of my pretty collectibles but also have reviews of the books I actually read because I love to recommend books to others!”
Capturing Interest: “I keep my followers interested by interacting with them by commenting, liking and responding to their stories. This isn’t hard to do because I have met the nicest people on bookstagram!”
Going forward: “I hope I can grow my account by just doing what I am doing. I have a few publishers sending me books to read and review so I love using my account for that purpose as well. I hope it will continue to grow but even if it doesn’t, I am getting so much enjoyment from it, and that is al that really matters!”
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Something Unique: : “I try to make the photos as personal as possible. I also try to add props that are in someway connect with the book, though it is not always possible. Right now I am doing this thing where the domino tiles are so laid that they connect with the adjacent photos."
Capturing Interest: “My posts are not just about beautiful photos; they always have something to say to the viewer. It may or may not be about books. I want to engage my followers into a conversation rather than just double-clicking and scrolling down. I ask book related, or reading habits related questions."
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Going forward: “I don't know where I will be going with this account. Usually, my posts are instinctive. Some accounts inspire me with their breathtaking photography or creativity and some by the knowledge or writing skills of the curator. I am doing it as long as I am inspired. My wife is a constant encouragement and if it weren’t for her I would've abandoned this a long time ago.”
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Something Unique: : “I don't deliberately try to stand out, I think everyone has a natural way of doing things that is different and unique to that individual Because of this, each page will stand out and shine beautifully all on its own simply because we are all different :D”
Capturing Interest: “I try to ask questions at the end of each post to encourage people to interact with each other which keeps things interesting.
Every now and then if there's something big going on in the book world (like the release of fantastic beasts) I'll do a special post to keep up with what's going on and keep it fresh and relevant.”
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Going forward: “My account started as a hobby where I share my love of reading. Now it's matured slightly in terms of taking photography more seriously but I still have a lot of fun reading, reviewing and taking beautiful photos to share with other book lovers across the world.”
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Something Unique: : “I don’t overcrowd my photos, which I notice a lot of people do and it takes away from the book you’re trying to talk about. At the end of the day, I’m not always that different from everyone else, but I focus on doing book reviews and talking about the book more than other random things.”
Capturing Interest: “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself! So far, doing polls and posting aesthetically pleasing pictures work. It’s a learning process every single day. I think growing as a bookstagrammer is all about meeting the right people. Some days it feels like high school where you need to be part of the popular circle to get noticed. It’s about being able to interact with followers in a different way, with giveaways and content they might want. So that’s what I’m learning and hoping to adapt to.”
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Going forward: “As for my account, I started it as a passion project and that’s what it will always be. Books are very important to me and I want to be able to share that with other bookworms as much as possible.”
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Something Unique: : “I struggled with it in the beginning. I know a lot of amazing bookstagrammers out there have themes and consistent color palates but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to post pictures of books that made me happy and eager to discuss them with other book lovers. My posts are very rarely planned out and more often than not a spur of the moment pic."
Capturing Interest: “I try to post a lot of new releases and intersperse those with cool new finds. My goal is to have a follower say: “hey, that sounds good, I want to check that book out.”
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Going forward: “My account makes me happy and it helps me talk to other bookish people. I am looking now to doing more giveaways as well as expanding to writing blog posts on my website.”
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Something Unique: : "We actually mention the owner of the photo at the very beginning to emphasize it. We don’t make any comments on the photo, we leave the floor to our followers. We try to use smileys that represent specific objects in the photo. For example, if the person takes his/her photo with a coffee mug, we use ☕.”
Capturing Interest: "We try to choose photos that are more attractive and related with our feed”
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Going forward: : “We love sharing book posts and we have a growing follower pattern nowadays. Our aim is to reach 10k followers.”
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Something Unique: : "My audience is small, those who love illustration and design, and also those who don’t like the personal nature of books. Every book’s subjective and this is just a little personal tit-bit of my view. It’s not an aesthetic page with colour schemes and staging. Just nice boo ks with a bit of info!"
Capturing Interest: ": I don’t mind about followers too much, my only angle is I post less frequently, but more thoughtfully. In my opinion there’s such a thing as too much content.”
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Going forward: : “My account is what you see is what you get, simple, content driven snapshots. In terms of growth I’d love to get others to contribute and write a short snapshot of their experiences of individual books. The book community is great and passionate, id love to tap into that!”
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